The Storm Broken
by Fraija
Summary: Yassen experiences Stormbreaker. His past and his future finally catch up with his present. Gen.


The job hadn't really affected Yassen for years. He'd sat in Barbados, shirt open, flip flops on his feet, sipping a cocktail whilst that nasty little man from Egypt had explained his plan to kill every school child in England. He'd never even blinked.

Yassen had left to talk to his superiors at Scorpia and see what their research department could do about time released airborne viruses inside computers. He'd made telephone calls to some of his people's contacts, trying to see if anyone wanted to pledge external funding to the scheme. He'd sat and calmly planned the death of millions and millions of children.

The job had hit him like a ton of bricks when he rounded a corner on the Sayle Complex and saw his chief of security orientating a new security guard.

Yassen had stopped and cocked his head.

"What is this?"

"New security, sir. Here to monitor production."

He'd turned sharply to the new recruit and had felt a flare of feeling in his chest. An echo of an emotion that he'd felt many years ago. The guard looked like a man he'd once known. A diluted, unfamiliar version, but similar enough to resonate.

The man was clearly an agent. He was studiously trying to look inconspicuous, natural. He was clearly so absorbed in his own business, trying not to make a mistake. He also clearly didn't recognise Yassen.

"Ian Rider."

Yassen didn't react, but the words completely broke him. A past, dead for fifteen years, rushed forward to meet him. He nodded briefly and walked on, trying not to look as dazed as he felt.

He should have put a bullet between his eyes right then. The idiot was clearly a spy and if he'd lived this long, he wasn't a bad one, despite being a security guard with a BMW hidden in town and who gave out his real name. The mission could not afford MI6 intervention.

But now he remembered Alex. Alex Rider. John's baby. He remembered the light in John's eyes when he came back from seeing the boy born. Yassen actually ached from remembering the pure brimming joy that creased John Rider's eyes when he talked about his son. Once, John had taken him back to his house and let him hold the baby. Helen had watched him like a hawk, gently adjusting his grip and laughing at the expression on his face when Alex moved or threw up on him.

John had just rubbed Helen's shoulders and looked so proud, of both of them. Yassen had never loved the man more.

How old would the kid be now? Fourteen, fifteen? Had it really been so long? Alex would be old enough to be killed in Stormbreaker. Yassen mentally slapped himself. Well, Ian Rider would not be caught by the coincidence of meeting his brother's pupil. Yassen wouldn't catch him unless ordered. That was his concession to the fire threatening to shatter his heart. And if Ian Rider couldn't conduct an investigation with the chief Scorpia contact turning a blind eye, he frankly deserved all he'd get.

Ian Rider did his job functionally. He stood in his place, patrolled, sent the curious neighbourhood kids away. He always drifted a little too close to the restricted areas but not enough to incite notice. One of the restricted area guards took ill. If Yassen hadn't been deliberately turning a blind eye, he would have replaced the man with someone who'd been there from the beginning. At this late stage of the day, sudden debilitating illnesses were suspicious. As it was, he allowed Rider to be promoted in to his place.

Rider had been there three weeks when Yassen was called into Sayle's office.

"You were supposed to be a bliddy expert!"

The putrid little man put Yassen's teeth on edge. He was looking especially hideous now, his eyes bulging and his mouth looking ever so slightly unhinged. He slapped a photograph of Ian Rider down onto the table with a force suggesting he would deeply love to have something to spend his anger on.

"Ms Vole informs me that this man works for MI6! Why did you not notice this? Why did you leave it to my people?"

Yassen picked up the picture and slipped it into his pocket. He looked cooly at Sayle and raised an eyebrow.

"We found him snooping around in the mines! He sent a call out for MI6! You were supposed to stop this happening, you idiot!"

"When you hire staff without consulting me, I can only assume that they are your people. As such, I choose not to interfere."

Sayle tried to argue with this, but seemed to pale under the quiet contempt of Yassen's milky blue eyes.

"What did he tell MI6?"

"Just that you were here."

"So the mission can continue?"

"Just bliddy kill him, alright!"

Yassen nodded his ascent and walked out of the door.

He was unusually apprehensive when he sat in Ian Rider's room, waiting for him to return from his shift. He wanted to speak to the man. Maybe give him another chance. Something for Alex.

The door opened and Ian Rider walked in. Yassen trained his gun on him immediately, cocked and ready to fire. Ian Rider looked alarmed. That was strangely foreign. John had never looked frightened, or surprised.

"You're careless, Rider."

"You're getting slow, Gregorovich."

"Sit down."

Rider sat down on the bed, evidently looking around for something he could do to distract Yassen and escape. It was too easy on a four poster bed.

"On the floor please, if you would, Rider."

Keeping the gun trained on his prisoner, Yassen moved casually across the room and disabled the bug under the Picasso. This conversation would not be overheard.

"I knew your brother, Mr Rider. And as you can imagine, I knew you before you foolishly introduced yourself with your real name."

The spy had the good grace to blush, he'd probably assumed nothing was going on in the beginning. Industrial espionage, illegal smuggling at best.

"What have you found out?"

"Everything. You're going to kill every school child in Britain, even my brother's son."

"Save yourself."

"Could you give me a ten second head start?"

Rider was joking of course, he fully expected it to be a forlorn hope, or something so dangerous that he couldn't possibly hope to pull through. Yassen's face showed nothing. He looked dead.

"That is my intention. Run."

Yassen Rested the gun across his lap and laced his fingers across it.

"One. Two..."

Rider ran. He probably shouldn't have played this game, but Rider certainly shouldn't have agreed to it. If their situations had been reversed, Yassen would have taken his captors gun and shot him, but Ian Rider evidently didn't think that way. They never did. They never saw lives as worth taking, or even not worth saving .

The head start was up. Yassen ran to the window and looked out into the carpark. Ian Rider was running across the grounds as at full tilt. Yassen took one shot at him, sending a plume of shattered concrete up at the fleeing man's ankles. Ian Rider would get to his car. There was no point chasing him on foot. No more errors of judgement would be believable. Yassen called for the helicopter and went to his room to get his guns.

The BMW glided along the black ribbon of road, dispatching the ground forces. The car was kitted out with MI6 modifications. Missile launchers, oil slick for the road, tacks. It was very Wacky Races. Yassen watched the chase through his binoculars as his helicopter caught up with the silver car. Yassen gave a signal to the pilot and began his descent. He slowly lowered himself down, the gap between the car and the assassin closing by inches.

Ian Rider had turned up the radio. Stupid, arrogant fool. Yassen hung there, waiting for Ian to notice him. Their eyes met. Yassen would have slammed on the breaks, have veered to the side, anything to take them out of tandem. Ian Rider did neither; his face just fell and his eyes widened to take in his death. Yassen cocked his head slightly to say "You just weren't good enough." and then he fired. Two guns, as quick as he could, he fired. The car sped off the path and coursed itself to a close in a nearby field. Yassen whinched himself up and sat back in the helicopter. He'd done his job and all he wanted to do was run till he stopped thinking.

He walked into Sayle's office looking particularly menacing. Even Sayle was nervous. A man who makes no mistakes would not be tolerant of mistakes in others.

"I'm going to sort out our delivery. Do not take on any new staff, do not admit anyone to the complex, kill any intruders. This plan is bigger than you now. If it fails because of your ego, my people will not be happy, or forgiving."

And with that Yassen left to bury himself in a bottle of Vodka and try to bury his memories again.

Yassen came back a few days before the Stormbreaker computers were supposed to be launched. The Sayle Complex looked like something from another world. Yassen didn't feel back, he felt he was there for the first time. Killing Rider was an eternity ago. He wasn't thinking about Alex Rider. This was just a job.

Yassen climbed out of the submarine feeling relieved about that. Nadia Vole was there to meet him, which was another relief. Vole was a Scorpia agent, and she was very promising. She did her job with no ego involved. Unlike Sayle. They rode back to the complex in the jeep whilst Vole filled him in on what had happened in the past three weeks.

Sayle was an idiot. Yassen had said it before, multiple times in all of his reports, but he felt it bore saying again. He was at the cusp of launching a multi-billion pound attack on the population of Great Britain and he'd brought in a kid to look around. Yassen was instantly suspicious by a kid called Felix that was called Alex by everyone and who couldn't stop snooping around. It wasn't his concern. He didn't tell Vole. He wasn't sure it would surprise him if it was Alex Rider. It was turning out to be that sort of mission.

Sayle didn't look pleased to see Yassen again, which meant he knew that he'd been stupid. Yassen sat down in the chair opposite his employer and pushed a copy of Computer World across the desk and looked expressionless.

"Yes, yes, I know!" said Sayle sounding flustered and rather nastier than usual. "I allowed that before I knew of MI6 and their meddling. You don't know how much I bliddy regret it now! Bliddy child can't keep his bliddy nose to himself!"

Yassen looked coldly at Sayle for a few moments. If it was Alex Rider, he didn't want to know. It didn't matter if he died here and now or later when the virus was released. If he didn't think about it, it didn't matter. He'd not thought about the boy for many many years, he would never see him and it wouldn't make any difference whether it was because he was dead or off living a happy life.

"Fine! I'll bliddy kill him! I don't know what they brought you here for, you don't bliddy do anything!"

"I protect my people's investment, Mr Sayle. See that you do the same."

Yassen sat in his hotel room in London. The plot was in motion now, it was just a matter of gauging its success or failure. He'd spent a few hours running in the morning, burning the tension out of his muscles and working through the frustration that had hounded him throughout this job; he'd soaked his aching legs in the bath, listening to one of his language tapes, repeating the vocabulary to himself feeling the Japanese words on his tongue, and now...well, he'd taken a bottle of vodka from the minibar and was watching the news in his robe.

He was half hoping it would be pulled off so he'd never have to deal with that slimy Sayle character again. He took a swallow of his vodka and tried to ignore the Prime Minister's speech; politicians annoyed him when they weren't encouraging him to torture people. Yassen drained the glass and poured himself another bottle from the minibar when Sayle came on to say this piece. And then another.

He was actually rather amused by the time the figure crashed through the ceiling and emptied a gun around the room. His aim was abysmal but he took out the computer and the Prime Minister's hand and at least one of the television cameras.

For a moment, as the cameras closed in and focussed, he saw the ghost of John Rider hanging, clutching a gun and calmly hoping that the guns pointed at him didn't shoot. The cameras were cut and Yassen realised he'd dropped his glass.

The phone rang. Yassen picked it up and accepted the call through the Reception.

"Gregorovich, you were right."

Yassen didn't say anything. Of course he was right. Sayle was an idiot and he was convinced that just because he was psychopathic he was more informed than everyone else.

"Our investors were annoyed by this failure. They'd like Sayle eliminated; they feel it would draw a line under this whole embarrassing debacle. Usual rate for a single target. I trust we can count on you, Gregorovich?"

"It would be my pleasure."

Yassen almost heard the man on the end of the phone grin when he said that. He imagined he must have met Sayle. Anyone who had would have the same reaction.

"I rather thought it might be. Take care of it tomorrow, if you could."

Yassen hung up and stretched out on the bed. He rarely took pleasure in killing anyone, but sometimes there was a twisted sort of satisfaction it it. He punched a number into the phone.

"Did you see what happened today."

"Fuck off, I'm a fucking surveillance expert. I can fucking watch a TV and hack into the motherfucking cameras in the Science museum without any trouble. Dickhead."

"Was it as big a cock up as it looked?"

"Oh yeah. Kid shot the prime minister, busted up a lot of shit. Sayle took two bullets, but ran out of there. The brat got his arm as well. Stupid ass never set up any back up system."

"Did Sayle call to confirm his pick up tomorrow?"

"Yeah, fucking little ass face. 'Bliddy' this, and 'bliddy' that. Little cocksucker. Like it wasn't his own goddamn fault."

"Would you cancel the pilot tomorrow? I'll take the helicopter tomorrow and finish Sayle at the pick up point."

"Sure thing. Hey, when are you next in Greece?"

"I have some free time after this assignment."

"You're coming to mine. My fuckass uncle came over and brought that shitty vodka. I need some other motherfucker to help me drink it."

"Goodnight Wort."

"Night Greg."

Not bad. Sayle was an idiot. He'd really forgotten what could happen if he fucked with a billion dollar organisation. Especially if you gave them your bank details. Yassen wondered if they'd be able to trick him with phishing emails. He seemed the type. He pulled a black shirt from his wardrobe and fastened it up. He wasn't going to sleep tonight and he was in a city with a thriving nightlife.

Yassen flew the helicopter to the hotel helipad. He saw two figures on the roof, Sayle was talking the poor guy's ear off no doubt. He had a gun pointed at him. Captive audience was all Sayle was good with really. Yassen lowered the helicopter down. Sayle pulled the gun.

Yassen fired his own. Two shots through the chest. He landed the chopper and went to check Sayle was dead this time. Satisfied, he looked up to see the other person on the roof.

He didn't react. Yassen had been trained not to react, but if he hadn't, he'd have gone pale and his jaw would have dropped. It was the ghost of John Rider. He was younger than Yassen had ever known John, but he had some of the same knowledge in his eyes and that same hypnotic calm. Yassen looked at him for a second that seemed impossibly long.

"You're Yassen Gregorovich."

Yassen nodded. He was still somewhat dumbfounded. He was face to face with Alex Rider. This was John's last link to the world, and Yassen's last link to John. This the baby he'd held while he basked in John's fond approval. Yassen hadn't felt this drawn to anyone since he'd last looked at John.

"Why did you kill him?"

He did seem genuinely curious. Like he wanted to understand what was happening behind the scenes. It didn't bother him that a man had died in front of him, or that he was standing in front of a contract killer.

"Those were my instructions." said Yassen, explaining in the same tone. He paused; it didn't seem enough, it didn't really answer the boy's question. "He had become an embarassment. It was better this way."

The boy didn't react. Yassen was impressed. The boy's eyes flicked over the corpse. Only Herod Sayle could be rendered less grotesque in death.

"Not better for him."

Yassen shrugged. Sayle was inconsequential, especially now as he met Alex for the first time. John would have said something similar. Something reasonable, almost funny, rendered witty by the sheer darkness of the situation. Yassen felt himself start to like the boy right there.

"What about me?"

The boy didn't sound afraid, or pleading. Just curious. He knew exactly what he was asking and he wasn't scared. John would have been so proud of the boy. He looked exactly like John, still slight but well muscled. He was handsome, clean cut. He didn't look like a lethal weapon, he didn't even have that determined, cynical set to his jaw that John always had. Not yet anyway.

"I have no instructions concerning you."

"You're not going to shoot me too."

He was just curious, once again. Not alarmed, relieved, surprised, anything. Just curiousity.

"Do I have any need to?"

Alex didn't seem to have an answer for that. He just seemed to be taking in the moment. Yassen was conscious of the boy drinking in his presence just as he did. He wondered whether Alex could sense the connection he had no way of knowing about. Yassen tried to commit the boy to memory. That he should be alive in the world and so much like his father was amazing. Wonderful.

"You killed Ian Rider. He was my uncle."

The boy sounded as though he was trying to remind himself as much as to inform Yassen. He seemed to know it wouldn't matter to Yassen, he just needed to say it.

"I kill a lot of people."

The boy didn't seem enraged or deflated by this statement. Some part of the boy understood what Ian Rider had finally realised just before the bullets hit him, in this game you die because you're just not good enough.

"One day I'll kill you."

It was a half hearted promise at best, maybe even a whimsical musing of a likely fate. The words coming from this child, even a miniature John Rider, were laughable.

"A lot of people have tried."

John would kill Blunt if he knew what he'd done to his son. Yassen would quite cheerfully have killed Blunt for it. The boy was standing here, in front of a corpse, talking about killing a man. They'd thrown the boy into the lion's den and it was through sheer grit that the boy had come out alive. The boy couldn't be exposed to any more of this. He shouldn't have killed a man before he'd kissed a girl.

"Believe me, it would be better if we didn't meet again. Go back to school. Go back to your life. And the next time they ask you, say no. Killing is for grown ups and you're still a child."

It sounded patronising but Yassen's heart was in his mouth. He'd sooner cut off his own arm than destroy the innocent, plucky amusement that he saw lurking behind Alex Rider's jaded, cynical eyes.

Yassen climbed into the helicopter, his head swimming and his heart fit to burst. He'd never really thought about Alex in all these years. He'd maybe expected to see him and smile fondly at the memories, he'd never expected...this. The sad, stoic, determined, resourceful, witty, calm boy that he'd met on the roof today. The boy wasn't just John in body, he was John in spirit.

The boy was still watching him, unable to take his eyes away. Yassen raised his hand. He tried to convey to Alex all the respect that he had for his conduct today, for what he'd achieved at Port Tallon, for what John Rider had been to him...everything that contributed to that overwhelming, heart bursting feeling because the boy was just so god damned incredible.

The boy raised his hand back.﻿


End file.
